Monday, June 1, 2015

Editor's Note on Truck, June 2015

June is a fine month for outdoor adventure, and I asked my Truck loaders to submit something that fit the rather loose topic of "playing outside." This has had fine and diverse results: playful haiku; meditative essays; an interview with artist Lewis Mark Grimes about the images he makes by physically and digitally arranging the naturally-shed feathers of endangered birds. (A careful reader may spot quite a few birds in this issue. This month's editor owns three pairs of binoculars and, while she did not consciously intend these natural selections, does not apologize.)

Truck has also driven the reader to Scotland with James Johnston, a musician, currently touring the US with the Scottish tribal percussion-and-bagpipe band Albannach; an autodidact historian of Scotland and its centuries of convoluted politics; and, under the nom de hike Gentle James of the Glens, a trail guide and fixture in Scottish conservation and hillwalking circles. ("Hillwalking" is a Scottish euphemism for "everything but the most technically difficult mountain climbs; you probably won't need to bring oxygen.") The essay is a joyous travelogue, a man-meets-motorbike romance, and the reader's senses will send them flying down the highways on a vintage Triumph alongside Johnston.I hope that in between reading the contributions piled in the back of the June Truck, the reader will go outside, even for a few breaths of coming rain, and enjoy the fleeting pleasures of dandelions -- and perhaps hear the murmur of grown-ups, sipping gin and tonic as they sit on the porch talking about grown-up things and watching distant storm clouds roll closer.